Well, that was a whopper of a sporting weekend, picking out the most stellar performance no easy task, but Munster’s win away to La Rochelle has to be in the running. As Gerry Thornley puts it, they rolled back the years at the Stade Marcel Deflandre against Ronan O’Gara’s men.
O’Gara was magnanimous in defeat, saluting Jack Crowley for “a peach of a drop goal”. (“I was thinking, ‘that little f**ker‘,” he smiled). The victory earned Munster a trip further down the French coast next Saturday when they will take on Bordeaux Bègles, conquerors of Ulster, in the quarter-finals.
Leinster, meanwhile, will host Glasgow next Friday night in the Aviva Stadium after putting 62 points past Harlequins at Croke Park, without reply. “By the end of the match, they were queuing up to score tries,” writes Johnny Watterson, John O’Sullivan reflecting on a performance that would have had Leinster attack coach Tyler Bleyendaal purring. Man of the match Josh van der Flier was doing some purring too when Johnny spoke to him after the game, the head coaches, naturally enough, having somewhat differing takes on the day.
Connacht march on too in the Challenge Cup, their win over Cardiff at the Dexcom Stadium setting up a quarter-final tussle with Racing 92 next weekend.
In Gaelic games, Seán Moran and Denis Walsh were in Páirc Uí Chaoimh to see Cork win their first National League title since 1998, thanks largely to a “blistering first half” against Tipperary. They’ll be favourites for the Championship now, “the inevitable hype”, reckons Denis, will “spread like gas - they will need masks”.
And the football Championship is under way, Malachy Clerkin in Ballybofey to see Donegal help themselves to a comfy win over Derry and Gordon Manning in Navan to witness Meath cruise past Carlow. Galway and Mayo are up and running too, although Mayo were given a run for their money by Sligo while Galway ran out easy winners over New York in Gaelic Park.
Over in Ruislip, a big second-half performance saw Roscommon put London to the sword, although the latter’s Liam Gallagher had the consolation of becoming “a pub quiz question for the future” - as Paul Fitzpatrick tells us in The Schemozzle, he scored the first two-pointer in championship history. There were wins too for Cork, Tipperary, Wicklow and Laois.
Brian O’Connor, meanwhile, looks back at a magical Saturday for the Mullins clan at Aintree, Willie, now a heavy odds-on favourite to retain the cross-channel trainers’ championship, left in tears after his son Patrick guided the 33-1 shot Nick Rockett to victory in the Grand National. The great old race’s capacity for perfect storylines, says Brian, persists.
Manchester United’s current storyline is, well, less than perfect, Ken Early attempting to pinpoint where it has all gone wrong, while Denis turns his eye to the ever-maddening scourge of slow play in golf, and the reluctance of the powers-that-be to do anything meaningful about it.
TV Watch: Golf devotees can watch The Masters field limber up in today’s practice rounds at Augusta (Sky Sports Golf, 5pm-10pm), and at 9.05 tonight you can see the best of the weekend’s GAA action on TG4.
